Initial Skin Contact and  Feeding your Baby

Skin to skin Contact with your Baby

As soon as your baby has been born, s/he will be carefully dried and placed on your chest skin to skin  with you and covered with a blanket. This is the best start that you can give to your baby – cuddling skin to skin after the birth for as long as you can. It eases your baby into the world, keeping him/her warm, well and secure.

Skin to skin contact has a positive effect upon stabilising your baby’s heart rate, breathing and blood sugar. Most importantly, it enables baby to find its way to the breast and take the first feed of colostrum which is rich with goodness. Even if you don’t intend to breast feed, having this precious colostrum for the first few feeds gives your baby the benefit of the protection and immunity it provides.

Leaflet link:“Your New Baby – off to a good start”

The Health Benefits of Breastfeeding

The Department of Health advises women to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of her baby’s life. However, even if you feed for less than this, your baby will still be much better equipped to fight infection and disease.

For Baby: Breastfeeding is the healthiest way to feed your baby. Breast fed babies have fewer infections, eczema, tummy upsets and visits to the doctor. They are less prone to diabetes and obesity as they grow up, and are smarter!

For you: Mums who breastfeed have a reduced risk of breast cancer and osteoporosis in later life.

The Practicalities of Breastfeeding

Your baby’s tummy is tiny (the size of a marble) when s/he is first born, so those initial feeds will be small and frequent. For the first few days its best if s/he feeds every 1 – 2 hours, night and day. This gives baby time to get used to his/her tummy. It will also give your baby plenty of colostrum and time to practise feeding. At the same time, these frequent feeds encourage your milk supply which increases day by day, pacing your baby’s increasing requirements.

Whilst in Hospital

Midwives offer breastfeeding support. In addition we also have a team of excellent breastfeeding specialists who can offer additional support if you need it.

Bottle Feeding

As midwives, we actively promote and support breastfeeding. However, if you choose to bottle feed your baby we will support you in this choice too. Bottle milk is available for your baby whilst in hospital.

Useful websites:

www.realbabymilk.org

www.kellymom.com

www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/bla

www.iwantmymum.com

www.groups.yahoo.com/breastfeedingukandireland

This page was last modified on Thu Jul 29 2010